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Broaden educational opportunities: Baltimore
| Hi-tech research facilities needed for India to become a more significant player in discovery, innovation |
Nobel laureate David Baltimore, delivering a lecture on “New Avenues to Health” in New Delhi on Monday.
NEW DELHI: American biologist and co-recipient of the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine, David Baltimore, on Monday said India should start now to broaden its educational opportunities and develop hi-tech research facilities so that in 10 or 20 years it could become a more significant player in discovery and innovation.
Delivering the inaugural Cell Press-TnQ lecture on ‘new avenues in health,’ he said even though India had a great tradition in science and technology, the developed world had a huge lead on it in both the areas and said the key for the future of the country would be to provide chances for young researchers to reach their full potential.
Presenting a 10-point charter for Indian science and technology, he urged the country to find ways to produce at low cost, drugs that were on patent in the West, so that it could help improve the health scenario across the world. If India had to succeed in innovation, it needed not only great academic and research institutions, but also adequate access to capital and a well-developed entrepreneurial spirit.
Medical research, he said, was best done in small enterprises, such as start-up biotechnology companies and small institutes. As new resources became available for research and education, they needed to be employed in a concentrated manner so that they cultivated excellence, he said.
Dr. Baltimore said that so far the U.S. was the only country that had been able to foster a vibrant biotech industry and said India needed to take a long-term perspective. The process must start immediately.
He urged India to look at low-cost solutions and not depend entirely on hi-tech solutions in trying to influence health outcomes.
He highlighted the health hazards posed by global warming such as the recent outbreak of chikungunya cases in Italy because of warmer weather and unusually high numbers of aedes albopictus mosquitoes. He expressed the hope that the coming government in the U.S. would sign the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.
“We [the U.S.] should have signed the Kyoto Protocol. Hope the new administration [in the offing] sees things differently,” he said in reply to a question from the audience.
He had a piece of advice for youngsters: “In choosing a profession, find one that is fun for you. Then you have the best shot at being successful.” He recalled his own youth, when he chose to do research much against the wishes of his parents, who wanted him to be a doctor and noted that they forgave him when he got the Nobel Prize.
Introducing Dr. Baltimore to the audience, Union Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal, said Dr. Baltimore epitomised the human spirit as he rose to the top, winning the Nobel Prize overcoming all challenges.
The lecture was organised by Cell Press, the Massachusetts-based publisher of prominent international biomedical journals and the Chennai-based TnQ Books and Journals, which supplies pre-press, design and software solutions to publishers of scientific, technical and medical books and journals.
Welcoming the gathering, president and CEO of Cell Press, Lynne Herndon and Managing Director, TnQ Books and Journals, Mariam Ram, said this was the first of a three-lecture series – the next two would be held in Bangalore and Chennai. The two companies have planned to make it an annual feature. Such internationally renowned scientists would be brought face to face with the Indian scientific community at two to three cities every year from now on, they said.
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